Twins Pursued Detmers, Soriano Prior To Deadline

The Twins added several veteran players at the deadline, picking up relievers A.J. Minter (Mets) and Jeff Hoffman (Jays) while also bringing starter Dean Kremer over from the Orioles. That trio, coupled with their mid-July pickup of Tommy Nance (also from Toronto), added some life to a pitching staff and marked a clear change in direction from their 2025 deadline.

It’s not the most aggressive slate of additions we saw this summer — far from it — but Minnesota did have eyes on some bigger fish. Dan Hayes of The Athletic reports that the Twins were among the many teams to reach out to the Angels about Reid Detmers. (The Twins also reportedly showed some interest in Angels shortstop Zach Neto.) Their interest in and José Soriano was already known, but it seems that interest was prominent enough that Minnesota didn’t call it quits when he went to Toronto. Reports on the day of the deadline indicated that the Blue Jays were getting calls on the right-hander, and in a separate piece, Hayes and colleague Mitch Bannon report that the Twins were among the teams who tried to pry Soriano loose from the Jays before he ever even made it to Toronto.

On the one hand, what’s done is done. The Twins didn’t put together a sufficient offer to make the Halos (or Jays) part with either Detmers or Soriano — both of whom are under club control via arbitration through the 2028 season. On the other, that pair of targets is illustrative of the team’s shift in mindset under new control person Tom Pohlad, who took over the top position in the ownership hierarchy during last December’s shuffle that saw three new minority stakeholders join the ownership group (and contributed to the eventual departure of longtime baseball operations president Derek Falvey).

Interest in names like Detmers, Soriano and Neto can also be instructive when looking ahead to the offseason. Detmers and Neto, in particular, will remain prominent trade targets for clubs looking to upgrade their rotation and infield for the next few years. Both remained with the Angels, who could well continue the sell-off that began last month under interim general manager John Mozeliak.

The interest in Soriano seems to have been particularly palpable. Hayes and Bannon report that the Twins were willing to include top shortstop prospect Kaelen Culpepper when they spoke to the Jays about Soriano. Culpepper, who has since been promoted to the big leagues (and homered in his debut game), is a comparably ranked prospect to infielder Arjun Nimmala, whom the Jays sent to the Angels to acquire Soriano in the first place. Presumably, the Twins discussed a similar arrangement with the Angels, but the Halos simply preferred Nimmala.

The package that landed Soriano in Toronto was top-heavy in nature. The Blue Jays didn’t give up any other ranked prospects from within their system, sending minor league outfielder Eddie Micheletti and minor league righty Angel Rivero back to the Angels as secondary pieces. Minnesota, it seems, was willing to discuss with the Jays a package headlined by Culpepper and more appealing secondary pieces, but Bannon and Hayes indicate that the Twins balked when the Jays set their sights on right-hander Riley Quick as the second piece in any discussion.

Quick, the No. 36 overall pick in the 2025 draft, has quickly shot up the Twins’ prospect rankings since being drafted. Each of Baseball America, FanGraphs and MLB.com rank him sixth among Twins farmhands; FanGraphs even lists him as the No. 91 prospect in the sport right now. He’s a 6’6″, 255-pound righty with an upper-90s heater and the potential for three better-than-average supporting pitches (slider, changeup, cutter). He’s already reached Double-A, and while he’s been dinged for seven runs in 8 2/3 frames there, Quick breezed through Low-A and High-A, striking out 36.1% of opponents along the way.

It’s understandable if Minnesota balked at including a pair of top-100 (or top-100-adjacent) prospects to pry Soriano loose, but their willingness to even discuss names from that range of the system underscores a departure from last summer’s mindset and is worth keeping in mind as they head into the offseason. Tom Pohlad has repeatedly spoken with some urgency when saying the Twins need to win back a jilted fan base that was let down when a 2023 playoff run was followed by payroll reductions and a 2025 deadline sell-off. Adding Minter, Hoffman and Kremer certainly isn’t going to do that on its own, but the Twins will still have work to do on the staff and at least seem open to taking a more aggressive approach to augmenting future rosters.

Heading into 2027, the Twins’ rotation locks are Joe Ryan and Taj Bradley. Perhaps they’ll listen on Ryan with only one year of club control remaining, but that would run counter to their more recent courses of action. Kremer and Bailey Ober are controlled through 2027 via arbitration. Pablo López will be back from internal brace surgery next spring. As with Ryan, Ober and Kremer, he’ll be a free agent following the 2027 season.

Former top prospects like Zebby Matthews and David Festa haven’t taken advantage of multiple rotation auditions. Lefty Connor Prielipp, another recent top-100 prospect, has held his own through his first 16 big league starts but has options remaining and certainly hasn’t dominated to the point that he’s a shoo-in. Young righty Mick Abel had a big spring and strung together a pair of dominant outings in April before an elbow issue ended his season. Young lefty Kendry Rojas has impressed at times and is also on the back end of FanGraphs’ top-100 list. This is a generally talented group, but the Twins are obviously lacking in established rotation options signed/controlled beyond 2027. That fact, coupled with their deadline targets, could set the stage for Minnesota again taking aim at some longer-term pitching help in the upcoming winter.